{"id":1009,"date":"2008-04-18T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1009"},"modified":"2008-04-18T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-18T22:25:00","slug":"plaques-and-gold-medals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1009","title":{"rendered":"Plaques and Gold Medals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once when he was awarded a gold medal for his poetry, Robert Graves<\/a> later took it to a jeweler and discovered that it was not gold at all.<\/p>\n

He got an essay out of the experience, at least, turning the experience into a metaphor for true poetic gold as opposed to gilded base metal<\/a> or pinchbeck<\/a>. Graves had very definite ideas about what constituted “true poetry.”<\/p>\n

Wednesday I was on the list of honorees for a campus-wide awards luncheon, but as I was coming down with the godawful head cold that led me to cancel my classes for the rest of the week, I skipped it.<\/p>\n

I went instead to my office, took care of various matters–at the end of the academic year, we are always hit with requests for recommendation letters for various jobs, internships, and graduate schools–and eventually went home. I did not want to sit sniffling and sneezing at a big table, almost unable to talk.<\/p>\n

As I left my office to go home and to bed, I encountered a student who was looking for me. She had brought my plaques–one of them 5×7 inches, the other one 8×10 inches. Each bore a pseudo-metallic plastic face plate with pseudo-gilt highlights bearing such sentiments as “In honor of your retirement.” The smaller was for my 15 years of service, apparently. (Technically, I did not retire–I quit<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

So somebody wasted the taxpayers’ money down at the trophy shop in the strip mall. Am I supposed to hang them on the wall of my study at home and contemplate them?<\/p>\n

By contrast, when we had the departmental joint retirement (that word again) party for two senior colleagues and myself last Saturday night, my colleagues gave me gift cards for Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Bam! No more Amazon.com wish list. Thanks, everyone!<\/p>\n

But, geez … plaques<\/i>.<\/p>\n

So I thought I could pry off the face plates and use them as display bases for some other project.<\/p>\n

On closer examination, however, I saw that they were merely made from some kind of pressboard with a plastic wood-grain veneer. So they cannot be sanded or refinished.<\/p>\n

Maybe there is a metaphor there too, but I am going to leave it alone for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once when he was awarded a gold medal for his poetry, Robert Graves later took it to a jeweler and discovered that it was not gold at all. He got an essay out of the experience, at least, turning the experience into a metaphor for true poetic gold as opposed to gilded base metal or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-gh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5058,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5058","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":0},"title":"The Greenland Norse: Maybe the Young Folks Just Moved Away","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland after more than 400 years of occupation is a compelling historical mystery. Some people have suggested that their numbers slowly diminished until there were too few left to reproduce. Others (such as Jane Smiley in her well-researched novel The Greenlanders) lay some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":526,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=526","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":1},"title":"Celto-Pagan MusicI am not exactly\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Celto-Pagan MusicI am not exactly the go-to guy on Pagan music. Jason Pitzl-Waters, who is an actual DJ, has much broader knowledge, and once he has finished re-doing it, you should drop by his music site, check the links, and download his \"Darker Shade of Pagan\" mp3 files.Being more a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=123","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":2},"title":"A Cigar for Ken Hanson","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The Reed College alumni magazine came today, announcing the passing of several faculty members of my time there, including my thesis advisor, the poet Kenneth O. Hanson. (I like the way the article calls Greece \"the country that he discovered in 1963.\" Land ho!) Regrets: that I never gave his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13518,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13518","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":3},"title":"The Pagans, the Unicorns, and the Serial Killer","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 15, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I have complained before about the relative lack of good American Pagan biography and autobiography. John Sulak's biography of Oberon Zell (b. 1942) and his partner Morning Glory (1948\u20132014), The Wizard and the Witch was one of the exceptions.((Yes, Morning Glory either invented or co-invented the term \"polyamory,\" and she\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/witzard-and-witch-vol-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/witzard-and-witch-vol-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/witzard-and-witch-vol-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":751,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=751","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":4},"title":"Who’s a Celt now ? – 5","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4While they wanted to present Wicca as the indigenous religion of Britain, the founders of contemporary Witchcraft were not so much caught up in the \"Celtic\" mythos. Some, in fact, favored the Saxon. By the 1970s, however, \"cardiac Celts\" were everywhere. Writers such\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":465,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=465","url_meta":{"origin":1009,"position":5},"title":"Trance danceJason Pitzl-Waters links to\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Trance danceJason Pitzl-Waters links to an article arguing that \"house music\" and other descendents of disco are the true soundtrack of the Pagan movement. (There are some examples to be downloaded.)Like the writer, I too, am tired of \"boring stereotypes of what witchy, pagan music should be.\" And I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}